


Almost Dignified

by PaulaMcG



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: 1979, Angst, Canon Compliant, Cold Weather, Diagon Alley, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Homelessness, Implied Sirius Black/Remus Lupin - Freeform, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Pre-Sirius Black in Azkaban, Remus Lupin's Briefcase
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:13:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22742314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaulaMcG/pseuds/PaulaMcG
Summary: In December 1979 Remus touches a window pane on Diagon Alley – and colder skin.
Kudos: 5





	Almost Dignified

**Author's Note:**

> Remus will never help me make any money.

Christmas. You’ll come home for Christmas.

The garish fairy lights flash all purple, then change colour again, painting every pastry in the window display sickening green. When the tempting orange shade returns, Remus catches himself pressing a palm against the cold pane. His fingertips brush the raindrops, which are too small to weave their own ways down the glass. The skin on his knuckles is chapped and ruddy, and he returns the hand to a jacket pocket when turning towards the drizzle.

There’s no way… and no one to know since when his face is wet.

The other hand grows numb carrying the briefcase. Perhaps he should have used a Shrinking Charm on it, too, and not only on some of his meagre possessions to fit them all in it. But the case is by far the most valuable object he owns, and holding it, he feels almost dignified himself, as if there were a direction and a purpose in his treading the slush of Diagon Alley.

Here’s something to focus on: avoiding the thickest slush and biggest puddles, as his canvas shoes are still not completely drenched. Perhaps he should try to pawn the case and get better shoes or something to eat. Or just admit defeat and ask for help from those who had some faith in Professor R. J. Lupin – while making gentle fun of him, too, of course.

But Peter’s in Wales, and James and Sirius are still wherever the Order sent them to fight. And Lily, perhaps now at her… She suffers from her nausea – although she claimed to also enjoy it, when she and James revealed the happy news.

He’s had only his landlady to reveal his news to, and now of course he has no landlady.

He hadn’t paid the rent for December yet, that’s why she invaded his room so soon after he’d Apparated back from the Cotswolds. Prone on his mattress, he was hardly able to register her presence, let alone concentrate on her questions. No, he didn’t bring... anything at all. Another time? From his…? No. He was stupid… dazed enough to just leave immediately, to even surrender to her his few Sickles as payment for the passed half of the month.

Now the last Knuts are gone, spent on one meal and cups of sweet coffee on three or four mornings and evenings, or five, he can’t remember. He can’t sit and slumber at a Leaky Cauldron table anymore, and it was no use going through again, trying another Muggle store for a job. They can see that he… so tired… he doesn’t belong where everyone’s cheerily rushing to choose and squander and share. That he won’t get home for Christmas.

The last words in the letter before the village elder’s owl with news.

He should go somewhere else, Apparate to Wales, perhaps, but there’s no such strength in him now. He won’t make it even to the pawn shop in Knockturn Alley. But here’s Flourish and Blotts, still open.

The bells jingle too loudly when the door closes behind him, and there’re too few customers left for the witch they’ve hired for temporary help instead of a homeless werewolf. No, he mustn’t let her guess… He’s dropped the case on the floor, but he picks it up again when she’s turned her attention to him. “Christmas,” he manages to mumble, “presents.”

He proceeds further in the bookstore, not to the shadowy corners to make her suspicious. Just between these shelves, where his back is visible to her and he can lean against a shelf, close his eyes. Pretending to search for some books, he moves to another spot every now and then, crouches, as if examining something on the lowest shelf, finally dares go down on his knees to have a better rest, savouring the warmth, which has first made his fingers prickle and ache.

As soon as he’s told the store’s closing soon, he forces himself to get up briskly, declaring he couldn’t make up his mind yet and will be back tomorrow. Since there’s nowhere else.

There’s another long night. The drizzle has turned into sleet, the slush half frozen. The zipper in his jacket is broken, doesn’t close all the way, but now he remembers he could have already pulled his robes over the Muggle garments, and he opens the case right here on the deserted alley so as to get to wear all his clothes.

His legs can still carry him some distance, wherever they want to take him, some familiar direction perhaps, towards Sirius’s flat, where it’s so long been his dream to live... Until he must seek a doorway sheltered from the wind. Now he sits down on the briefcase, huddles for a rest, hoping not to fall asleep and freeze.

What else has he forgotten besides these long robe sleeves, which could have kept his hands warmer? What he can’t endure quite yet. He lifts his fingers onto the colder skin of his face, checking for tears perhaps.

These memories – if he dares admit he’s brought them from the Cotswolds – will keep him awake. The Dark Mark’s virescent glow over the roof of his childhood home, which the law now forbids him to even visit again. The last image of the ancient house, his apple trees, bare. The feel of final chill: his mother’s, his father’s cheek.

**Author's Note:**

> This piece belongs to the same story of my Remus's life as the rest of my fanfiction, in which I follow only the canon of Rowling’s first five novels. My Remus did not have a Muggle or Muggle-born parent.
> 
> This is set in the night before Almost Dark Again.


End file.
